and now expiring. These circumstances, so favourable to the introduction and maintenance of a new system, are justly to be attributed to the wise, provident, and spirited exertions, which have had the concurrent support of parliament and of the people, during the whole eventful period of the last twenty years. The plan is adapted to meet a scale of expenditure nearly equal to that of the year 1806; and it assumes, that during the war, the annual produce of the permanent and temporary revenues will continue equal to the produce of the same year 1806. It is understood, that any further or unforeseen charge, or any deficiency of revenue, shall be separately and specially provided for. Keeping these premises in view, it is proposed, that the war loans for the years 1807, 1808, and 1809, shall be twelve millions annually; for the year 1810, fourteen millions; and for each of the ten following years, sixteen millions. Those several loans, amounting for the fourteen years to 210 millions, are to be made a charge on the war taxes, which are estimated to produce 21 millions annually. The charge thus thrown on the war taxes is meant to be at the rent of 10 per cent. on each loan. Every such loan will therefore pledge so much of the war taxes as will be equal to meet this charge:—that is, a loan of twelve millions will pledge £1,200,000 of the war taxes. And in each year, if the war should be conti. nued, a further portion of the war taxes will, in the same manner, be pledged. And consequently, at the end of fourteen years, if the war should last so long, 21 millions, the whole produce of the war VOL. XLIX.

taxes, would be pledged for the total of the loans, which would at that time have amounted to 210 millions. The ten per cent, charge thus accompanying each loan, will be applied to pay the interest of the loan, and to form a sinking fund, which sinking fund will evidently be more than five per cent. on such of the several loans as shall be obtained at a less rate of interest than five per cent. It is well known, that a five per cent, sinking fund, accumulating at compound interest, will redeem any sum of capital debt in fourteen years. Consequently, the several portions of the war taxes, proposed to be pledged for the several loans above-mentioned, will have redeemed their respective loans, and be successively liberated in periods of fourteen years from the date of each such loan. The portions of war taxes thus liberated, may, if the war should still be prolonged, become applicable in a revolving series, and may be again pledged for new loans. It is, however, shewn by the printed calculations and tables, that, whatever may be the continuance of the operation of the property-tax, will not be payable beyond the period for which it is now granted by the 46 Geo. III. c. 65, but will, in every case, be in force only during the war, and until the sixth day of April next after the ratification of a definitive treaty of peace, and no longer. It is next to be observed, that the charge for the interest and sinking fund of the proposed loans, being taken from the annual produce of the war taxes, a deficiency equal to that charge will be created in the amount of the temporary revenue applicable to the war expenditure. Supplementary loans will Rr

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be requisite to make good that deficiency. Those supplementary loans must increase in proportion to the increasing deficiency, if the war should be continued, but will never amount, even in a period of twenty years war from the present time, to more than five millions in any year, beyond the amount to which the sinking fund of that year will have been raised by this plan. It is proposed that the supplementary loans shall be formed on the established system of a sinking fund of one per cent. on the nominal capital. The charge so created will be provided for, during the first three years, by the expiring annuities; and du ing that period the country will have the great benefit of an exemption from all additional burthens. A new spring may thus be given to the energy of our commerce atal events it will obtain a security from the increased pressures which it must otherwise experience. From 1810, and for the six following years, a charge must be provided for, amounting on the average of . those seven years to not more than £293,000 annually; a sum in it. self so small, in comparison with the great additions which have necessarily been made to the taxes in each year, for the last fourteen years, that it can scarcely be felt, and cannot create any difficulty as to the means of providing for it: but even this comparatively small amount may probably be much diminished by the increasing produce of the actual revenues, and by regulations for their further improve. ment. And thus provision is made on the scale of actual expenditure, for ten years of war, if it should be necessary, without any additional taxes, except to the inconsiderable

amount above stated. At the close of that period, taking the three per cents. at 60, and reducing the whole of the public debts at that rate to a money capital, the combined amount of the public debts will be £387,360,000, and the combined amount of the several sinking funds then existing will be £22,720,000; whereas the present amount of the whole public debt taken on the same scale of calculation is £352,793,000 and the present amount of the sinking fund is no more than £8,355,000. If the war should still be continued beyond the ten years thus provided for, it is proposed to take in aid of the public burthens certain excesses to accrue from the present sinking fund. That fund, which Mr. Pitt (the great author of a system that will immortalize his name) originally proposed to limit to four millions annually, will, with the very large additions derived to it from this new plan, have accumulated in 1817 to so large an amount as 24 mi. lions sterling. In the application of such a som, neither the true principles of Mr. Pitt's system, nor any just view of the real interests of the public, or even of the stockholder himself, can be considered as any longer opposing an obstacle to the means of obtaining at such a moment some aid in alleviation of the burthens and necessities of the country. But it is not proposed in any case to apply to the charge of new loans a larger portion of the sinking fund than such as will al ways leave an amount of sinking fund equal to the interest payable on such part of the present debt as shall remain unredeemed. Nor is it meant that this or any other oparation of finance shall ever prevent

the

the redemption of a sum equal to the prescut debt in as short a period as that in which it would have been redeemed, if this new plan had not been brought forwards. Nor will the final redemption of any supplementary loans be postponed beyond the period of 45 years prescribed by the act of 1792 for the extinction of all future loans. While each of the annual war loans will be successively redeemed in 14 years from the date of its creation, so long as war shall continue; and whenever peace shall come, will be redeemed always within a period far short of the 45 years required by the above-mentioned act. In the result therefore of the whole measure, there will not be imposed any new taxes for the first three years from this time. New taxes of less than £300,000, on an average of seven years from 1810 to 1816, both inclusive, are all that will be necessary, in order to procure for the country the full benefit and advantages of the plan here described; which will continue for twenty years; during the last ten of which again no new taxes whatever will be required. It appears, therefore, that parliament will be enabled to provide for the prolong ed expenditure of a necessary war, without violating any right or interest whatever, and without imposing further burthens on the country, except to a small and limited amount: and these purposes will be attained with benefit to the public creditor, and in strict con. formity both to the wise principles on which the sinking fund was established, and to the several acts of parliament by which it has been regulated. It is admitted, that if the war should be prolonged, certain

portions of the war taxes, with the exception of the property tax, will be more or less pledged for periods, in no case exceeding fourteen years. How far some parts of those taxes are of a description to remain in force after the war; and what may be the provision to be made here after for a peace establishment, probably much larger than in former periods of peace; are consider. ations which at present need not be anticipated. It is reasonable to as-` sume, that the means and resources which can now maintain the prolonged expenditure of an extensive war, will be invigorated and in. creased by the return of peace, and will then be found amply sufficient for the exigencies of the public service. Those exigencies must at all events be comparatively small, whatever may still be the troubled and precarious circumstances of Europe. Undoubtedly there prevails in the country a disposition to make any farther sacrifices that the safety, independence, and honour of the nation may require; but it would be an abuse of that disposition, to apply it to unnecessary and overstrained exertions. And it must not pass unobserved, that in the supposition of a continued war, if the loans for the annual expen diture should be raised according to the system hitherto pursued, permanent taxes must be imposed, amounting, in the period assumed, to 13 millions additional revenue. Such an addition would add heavily to the public burthens, and would be more felt after the return of peace than a temporary continu ance of the war taxes. In the mean time, and amidst the other evils of war, the country would be sub. jected to the accumulated pressure Rr 2

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subjects, instead of the word of truth and charity, the libellous and inflammatory calumnies of electioneering contests, and party violence.

As a member of the society, solicitous for the promotion of its genuine objects, I desire to enter my dissent to a resolution pur, porting to express its unanimous opinion. I object to the propriety of its taking part at all in the po. litical divisions of the country: I object to its labouring to extend and to prolong those divisions with respect to a measure publicly withdrawn, and of which there is consequently no longer any ques. tion but, most of all, I object to the truth, and, may I not add, to the decency, of a censure, which, if it were founded either in justice or in reason, would apply to almost every description of public men, and would even implicate all those authorities which are the most entitled to our respect and reverence. If to permit the king's subjects of all persuasious to serve him in his army, be" an unconstitutional innovation," with whom, and when did it originate? It was first made the law in Ireland fourteen years ago, at the express recommendation of the crown, delivered from the throne by one of his majesty's present ministers, then lord. lieutenant of that kingdom.

If the adoption of a similar law in Great Britain would be "an act of hostility to the established church," to whom shall that hostility be ascribed ?—To those who now proposed, or to those who long ago engaged for that conces sion? To the framers of lord Howick's bill, or to those members and supporters of the present go.

vernment, who, in the year 1793, gave and authorized that promise to the catholics of Ireland?

If the employment of catholic officers and catholic soldiers in the general service of the empire; if the permitting them to hold and exercise, at his majesty's discretion, all military commissions, the rank and station of a general not cxcepted; if the relieving them in this respect from all penalties and disabilities on account of their religious persuasion ;-if these things be matter of just alarm to the ecclesiastical constitution of this country," when was the moment of alarm?-In the year 1804, all this, and more than this, was done in an act proposed by Mr. Pitt, with the concurrence of his colleagues, now in administration, passed by the British parliament, and sanctioned by his majesty's royal assent.— That act legalized a long list of military commissions, antecedently granted by his majesty, with the advice of the same ministers; and it enabled his majesty prospectively to grant, at his discretion, all military commissions whatever to catholics-not indeed to British or Irish catholics, but to foreign ca tholics-to men who owe his majesty no allegiance, and who are not even required to disclaim those tenets which all our fellowsubjects of that persuasion have solemnly abjured!

What ground of difference will then remain to justify those outrageous calumnies against the late proposal? Is it that men were permitted to aspire to the rewards and honours of a profession, to the toils and dangers of which the legislature of their country had long since invited them? Is it that the

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